The Kānikars, like the Irulas and Yānādis of the Tamil and Telugu countries, do not belong to the polluting classes. Pulayans, Kuruvans, and Vēdans are not allowed to approach them.
The dietary of the jungle Kānikars includes wild pigs, deer, porcupines, hares, monkeys, fowls, sheep and goats, parakeets, doves, tortoises, fish, crabs, peacocks, tigers (said to taste like black monkey), owls, squirrels and field rats, in addition to many vegetable products of the forest. They will not eat beef or the flesh of ‘bison.’
Some Kānikars are tattooed on the forehead with a crescent and dot, or a vertical stripe. The Kānikars say that their ancestors wore a garment made of jungle fibre, which has been replaced by a cotton loin-cloth. “Both men and women,” Mr. M. Ratnaswami Aiyar writes, “wear on the neck numerous strings of red beads and rings made of shells, which hang down to the abdomen in the case of the women. The men wear ear-rings of brass or silver. The women wear bangles of brass and iron, and a number of brass rings on the fingers. The men bear suspended from one of their shoulders a cloth bag containing two or more partitions, in which they keep their vilangupetti or box containing betel, tobacco, and chunam. They carry, too, suspended from the shoulder, a cane basket wherein they place their day’s crop of grain or roots, or any other food obtained by them. They attach to their waist-string or cloth a billhook and knife, and carry their bows and arrows slung on their shoulders. Whenever the Kānikars from the different kānis or settlements have to be gathered together for a common meeting, or for going together elsewhere on a common purpose, a messenger amongst them carries from one kāni to another the message with a knot of fibres of creepers, which serves as a symbol of call. The knotted fibre is passed on from one kāni to another till the required assembly is secured. It is thus that I secured my Kānikars to present them to their Excellencies Lord and Lady Curzon.”
Kānikar.
For most of the information contained in this article I am indebted to Mateer’s ‘Native Life in Travancore,’ an article by Mr. Ratnaswami Aiyar,[91] and notes by Mr. N. Subrahmani Aiyar.
Kani Kuruppu.—Barbers of the Kaniyans.
Kani Rāzu.—A name, denoting fortune-telling Rāzus, sometimes used as a synonym by Bhatrāzus, in whose songs it occurs. The name Kani-vāndlu, or fortune-tellers, occurs as a synonym of Yerukala.
Kaniyan.—Kaniyan, spelt and pronounced Kanisan in Malabar, is a Malayālam corruption of the Sanskrit Ganika, meaning an astrologer. The word was originally Kani, in which form it invariably appears in Malayālam works and Tamil documents. The honorific suffix ‘ān’ has been added subsequently.
The two titles, generally applied to Kaniyans, are Panikkar and Āsan. The former is said to be a common title in Malabar, but in Travancore it seems to be restricted to the north. The word Panikkar comes from pani, or work, viz., that of military training. The fact that most of the families, who own this title at present, were once teachers of bodily exercises, is evident not only from the name kalari, literally a military school, by which their houses are usually known, but also from the Kēralolpatti, which assigns military training as a duty of the caste. Āsan, a corruption of the Sanskrit Āchārya, is a common title among Kaniyans in South Travancore. Special titles, such as Anantapadmanābham, Sivasankaran, and Sankili, are said to be possessed by certain families in the south, having been conferred on them by kings in olden times. Some Kaniyans in the north enjoy the surname of Nampikuruppu.